Big Brother Looms as U.S. Top Court Tackles Cellphone Dispute

Major test of privacy rights in digital age…

U.S. Supreme Court justices signaled on Wednesday they may impose limits on the ability of police to obtain cellphone data from wireless providers to track the location of criminal suspects in a major test of privacy rights in the digital age.

During arguments in the closely watched case involving a convicted robber, several of the nine justices across the ideological spectrum indicated concern about the use of data revealing a suspect’s past locations, based on the cellphone towers that relayed calls, without a court-issued warrant.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor sounded the alarm about the increasing amount of data that the government can potentially obtain, noting that most Americans “want to avoid Big Brother,” referring to the symbolic all-seeing leader in George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”